Applewatch
by Nenalata
Summary: It was a desolate farm, untouched for years. No one knew of the corpse inside...a corpse whose soul she could feel tugging at her from beyond the Void. Lucien Lachance threeshot. Warnings for slight gore.
1. Chapter 1: Cat

**A/N: Hey, everyone! I just wanna apologise for any typos in advance, considering that I wrote the entire three-shot on my iPod. =P Anyway, The Elder Scrolls and any characters, places, items etc do not belong to me but Bethesda, blah blah blah.**

**Reviewing stops the Oblivion crisis, bee tee dubs, if you haven't finished the Main Quest yet. You don't really wanna spend your time collecting wolf testicles for Martin, so this is the easy way out, right?**

She dismounted from the dangerous-looking black horse and spent a few moments gazing at the ruined farm in front of her. Daedric fire from an old Oblivion gate had reduced the fence to little more than an iron gate in the mud. The garden was overgrown, the family's ancient graves nearly indifferent from the surrounding landscape. The walls of the hovel were severely weather-beaten and gray with age, but the door seemed to be in good shape.

A lump formed in her throat as she thought of what the walls contained. How many years had it been? And how many years had it taken for her to muster up the courage and selflessness needed for this task? Sithis would probably disapprove, but even worse, _he_ would definitely not be pleased to see her…

She would accept the consequences. She had reminded herself this repeatedly on the long journey from Cheydinhal to this lonely farm in the Jerall Mountains… Her black steed seemed to sense her hesitation and whinnied softly. The noise distracted the woman from her reveries and took a step forward, her jaw set. The wind whistled through the barren trees, and a shriveled apple fell from one of the ancient branches.

She picked it out of the snow and smiled. Applewatch. Before she placed her hand on the door's handle, she bit into the withered fruit and smiled. No juice flew out of her bite mark. Only rotted, dry fruit-flesh lay exposed, brown and dead.

The door flew open faster than she'd anticipated. She focused on wiping her black boots on the floor, closing the door shut behind her, gazing at the skeleton of a dog lying in the corner, rather than looking up. She inspected the bones more closely. Dark brown hair still clung to it in some places. Smiling, she stroked the dead animal as if it were sleeping. The dog's name had once been Jake, she knew.

Finally, she was unable to postpone looking at him. She could feel his lifeless eyes looking at her from beyond the Void. She straightened up from the jumble of bones and gazed at the mutilated corpse suspended from a rope tied to the roof's beams.

She stepped closer, navigating her way around the old bloodstains, her black robe making a lonely _whisk _noise as she moved. Eventually, she came to a stop right in front of it and crouched down so her nose was level with his, rather than the scratch marks of where his genitals had once been.

"Hello, Speaker." Her voice sounded lush in this death-scented place. "It's been years, I know. Years of you dwelling in Sithis' realm of death…How horrible is it there, I wonder? Or how beautiful…" She rocked back on her heels like a child and shook her hair back from its hood.

"I know you have always reproved me for being less worshipful of Sithis than I ought to be. Don't misunderstand, for you know I love our Father more than any other god, man or creature alive or dead…"

She smiled then, a bright comparison to the corpse's own mouth, which was stretched wide in pain and horror and reddened by blood. "Except you, of course…I love you as much as I do the Void…" Standing up and shaking cobwebs from her robe, she whipped out a scroll.

"I love you enough to call you back from Sithis and replace your festering corpse with my own, fresher one," she said in a dangerous voice, as if daring the dead man to object to her decision. He probably did, she thought with a sad smirk; she could sense his disapproval from beyond the grave.

"Well, there's nothing you can do about it now," she said, raising her voice against the winds that had erupted from the ancient scroll. "I am alive and am able to make my own decisions, _Lucien Lachance_!" Her voice cracked with the feel of his unused name on her tongue. It evoked memories of happier days, with blood spilled for fun and not for vengeance. It evoked memories of dark nights in the fort he called a home; nights that caused those old ruins to echo with the sounds of his name again and again…

A loud sob ripping through her startled her into realizing the room was silent. The winds had stopped and the room was deathly quiet again. The odor of blood was gone, though…As was Lachance's corpse that had hung from the rafters for so many years…

"Red Cat." Red jolted again at the sound of her Silencer nickname. Red Catius, that was her given name. When Lucien had appointed her as his private assassin, the moniker had formed and was eventually used by all the Brotherhood.

_A silent predator that toys with its kill before introducing it to a painful demise_, Lucien had amusedly remarked when she completed her first contract for him. _Like a cat, you slink in the darkness as if you were born in it. You do the Night Mother proud, Red_.

Red carefully turned around, her silver-streaked black hair twirling around her in the movement. Lucien Lachance stood before her, robed in the Black Hand attire she'd laid on the ground upon her arrival. The hood barely concealed his look of unspeakable wrath.

"By Sithis, what have you done?!" He said in a low, dangerous voice. The phrase reminded her of when, just days before his death, he had caught her in Bravil with her hands drenched in the previous Listener's blood. This time, however, she did not have a look of guilt or confusion upon her face. "Are you oblivious to the incredible rage that is filling Sithis right now? May He be merciful upon your tainted soul, Red! You have meddled with forces of Sithis' own power! Do you think yourself to be a god?!"

She gazed at him coolly with her hands folded behind her back. She could feel them turning slightly numb from the effects of the spell she'd woven upon him.

Her look did nothing to calm the fires in his eyes. If anything, they only increased them. "You dare look upon me with such impertinence?" Lucien growled. "I thought you had your blasphemous moments, Red, but this crosses every line. Do you think yourself exempt from the Tenants? From Sithis' word?"

No, I don't Lucien," she said quietly, averting her eyes. "In fact, I am following Sithis' law to the word." Red looked up, matching his fierce gaze. "You are free from death, Lucien. I will take your place here in Applewatch."

He laughed once, a bitter, unamused sound. "You're going to die by your own hand?"

She shook her head. "The spell that freed you now binds me to the site of your death. Unless another is willing to take my place, I will remain here forever." I love you, she added silently, hoping the emotion wouldn't show too strongly in her eyes.

He noticed, though, and the angry fires died from his eyes. An unfathomable look fixed itself in them as he looked at her, trying to read her.

"And this is how you are going to repay Sithis?" he finally asked. "By being dead for someone else's sake?"

"I won't be dead."

"You'll be as good as it," he said in disgust. Red felt her heart sink. "I served Sithis all my life, and in death I continued to serve him." Lucien shook his head. "And you wish to take my place and have me serve Sithis in life some more?!"

"Yes."

"You are mad."

"I love you." The words came out unbidden, but she made no gesture to try and take them back. They seemed to stop his flow of reproach, though, at least for now. He only looked at her with his dark brown eyes, rather sadly.

"You are wasting your life. You are still young; you could serve our Father in other ways." His look softened even more. "You could serve yourself and others."

Red Cat laughed, the sound caressing the rooms' corners hesitantly. It had been so long since any joyous sounds (or sounds of life at all) had entered this house. "We are not as young as we used to be, Speaker." The formal title she used to address him seemed distant and hurt him, but he could see what she meant. Lines of gray faintly spiderwebbed her once jet-black hair. She had darker shadows under her eyes.

She had dried tears on her cheeks. Tears that were years old. Lucien took a deep, rattling breath, still unused to the taste of air.

"How long am I permitted to stay here?"

Her look was sorrowful. "Twenty-four hours. You may come again next year. If you wish, of course," she added, a little hastily.

'Assassins should never be hasty,' he might have scolded her years ago. Now, however, the lecture in his thoughts was one of not hurrying the day they had left. She had always been a lively, spirited girl, he recalled wistfully, but fierce, merciless and cruel in a fight. He looked at her aging face and felt warmth enter his icy heart. It had been so long since he had felt the taste of life on his tongue. He was still angry at her for breaking the contract all Brothers and Sisters had with Sithis after death, but it was impossible to not be touched by such a selfless act, even made by an assassin.

Though Lucien averted his eyes, Red held her gaze. She wanted to kiss him, knew he'd never let her. Instead, she sat on the creaky chair located next to the dusty fireplace and turned her back to him, wondering if he would leave.

A ferocious wind howled around the farm. She watched the windows shake with their force, pretending she couldn't hear the Speaker's breathing.

"Twenty-three hours," she said almost to herself. She could almost hear him battling inside himself, wanting to stay with her but knowing it would be a disgrace to Sithis if he showed love to someone other than Him so soon after his resurrection. Between herself and their religion, Red knew whom Lucien would choose.

She drew out the withered apple again and bit into it. This time, a single drop of dusty juice emerged, like blood welling from a long-dead corpse. Her bites sounded loud in the silence, and she knew Lucien had made his decision.

Unexpectedly, he was beside her, and cupped one half of it in his gloved hand. Red looked at the ten fingers on the apple, five of them gloved and feminine, five of them gloved and masculine. He took a bite on the other side of the shriveled fruit and swallowed the piece whole. He placed his free hand on her cheek and turned her face towards him, and for a second she thought he really was going to do it, he really was going to kiss her—

And then his hand was gone andshe was the only person in the room, an aging woman holding a dead plant. She heard him saddle up the horse and climb on. Without moving, she called, "I'll see you next year."

She knew he would return, and that knowledge kept her calm and collected as she bit into the apple again. With a knife drawn from her robe, she carved out the portion that his lips and teeth had touched and placed it in a flowerpot whose only other occupant was a wilted flower. The remainder of the core she flew into the fireplace. Red threw a small fireball at it where it erupted into flames, sending smoke scented with apple death into the sky.

Down the trail already a mile away, Lucien Lachance smelled the smoky fruit on the air and smiled.

Inside the lonely farm of Applewatch, Red Cat crossed her legs on the chair with a smile on her face as well. Content to spend the rest of her life dealing with Sithis' poorly-concealed rage. Content to spend eternity luring travelers to their deaths to keep Him happy. Content to speak with a long-dead dog as her only companion for the next three-hundred and sixty-four days.

Content to spend that one day with him, when he came again.


	2. Chapter 2: Kitty

**A/N: Obligatory apologies for the spelling and formatting fails, and obligatory The Elder Scrolls and its characters, places, items etc do not belong to me but to Bethesda.**

**Reviewing makes happiness, which makes Relmyna cry, so you'll get an extra portion of that specific poison to kill the Gatekeeper. By Sithis, aren't you lucky to have me?**

Red would dance among the shadows sometimes, pretending they were her friends, acquaintances, a certain Imperial Speaker.

Sometimes she would talk to Jake. Apologize for killing his mistress and leaving her therefore unable to care for him. She felt very bad about that. Red Cat had always liked animals.

She'd really liked her black horse, too. Shadowmere was a little silver around the mane and required small bits of healing, but she had been a gift from Lucien Lachance, and Red had planned to cherish and keep her safe forever.

But things don't always go as planned...

Shadowmere had fled months ago. Raced back to Fort Farragut, where her beloved original master was...She had loved Red, too, but Lucien was more important.  
Red Cat had wished she could join them.

But Sithis required souls, and she had to provide them. After many 'travelling mishaps' around the decrepit farm Red called prison had given Applewatch a haunted name, adventurers didn't take the path the middle-aged woman was allowed to roam. She had had to lure daedra worshippers, Legion foresters, necromancers alike to her lair like an anglerfish with shiny lights and pretty illusions. Deer merrily trotted by often, and pestering imps, but animals would not do for Sithis, oh no. Her punishment must be painted in human blood, built in human bones, composed in human screams, set afire with human souls.

The minutes, hours, days, weeks, months past. Red's hair and fingernails grew, and more silver than black showed in her ebony tresses. Lines, created by anything other than laughter, were slowly etched into her porclein skin. Her robe grew dusty and torn.

Her mind started to warp, bend...She started to go insane. And then she would remember that soon, oh so soon, Lucien would come. For one night, everything could be blissful, interesting, passionate, joyful...

And she would flop on the bed, momentarily calmed at the thought of Lucien's eyes--alive again--peering caringly at her.

Jake wonders what's wrong with me, she thought. Everything had personalities nowadays...even the daedra she conjured to kill for sport. They didn't count towarda her sentence, of course, but it was still something to do...

She wished she could dip bread in their blood, the way she and Lucien used to after a kill and they had drunk too much mead...which quickly led to other actions...

But daedra did not leave any blood behind for dipping purposes. She did not even have any bread to dip.

She didn't need to eat anymore.

So sad. Poor red tomcat, locked in a mousetrap with the mouse on the other side...  
Red didn't even know what that meant, she realized with a giggle. Nothing made sense to her anymore...

So sad. Sad, crazy kitten. Waiting for her master to come and cuddle her better...  
Red was looking forward to that cuddle.

So lonely. So sad. Lonely, sad Red.  
Lonely, sad three more days.

Three more days until I'm allowed to finally go crazy, Red thought with another giggle, not knowing what she was talking about.

No smile in that laugh. She hadn't smiled in months. Years, maybe. Who knew? Maybe it had been years and Lucien hadn't ever stopped by. Maybe she was old.

Poor Cat.  
Sad, lonely Cat.  
Old and crazy Cat.  
Purr, purr, bastards.  
Red was still singing this mantra to herself when Shadowmere pulled up three days later, this time with a person on her back.

Red didn't hear. Didn't hear the jingle of the bridle, the creak of the leather. Didn't even hear the racing of a human heart.

In the Void, Sithis watched and wasn't sure of whether to laugh in sadistic amusement or scream in fury.

Imaginary barks of a dog clouded Red's mind. "Jake says someone's here," she said out loud, rising from her bed with a fake smile. It hurt.

What can you do? The poor woman was lonely.

Red cleaned up. Brushed her salt-and-pepper hair. Trimmed her nails and did her best to make herself presentable.

Now, why am I doing this? She wondered, completely forgetting about Lucien's long-awaited arrival. Why am I getting dressed up for a victim?

Lucien was greeted warmly with a dagger to his throat as he entered Applewatch. Blood practically carpeted the floor and hung on the walls like macabre tapestries. Every object was spotted in gore, from the glass on the windows to Jake's ancient bones: as if the wretched creature had died only minutes ago after a severe flaying.

Strong-stomached Lucien felt bile rise in his throat. Remembering said esophagus, he peered down at the Imperial woman bearing it. Graying hair, sharp lines in the skin, an unusual gleam in her eyes that had not been there when he'd left. Lucien had never seen anything so beautiful.

"Red Cat," he muttered. Red started at the sound of her name, much as she had when she'd first revived him. No one had spoken her name--no one had spoken anything, actually--besides the demons in her head for months.

Coming to her senses, she whipped the blade back into its sheath. "Oh, hello," she said with false cheeriness. "Sorry, I didn't know it was you."

Who else would she be expecting?

"Don't mind the blood ," Red called as she fixed a kettle over the fireplace. "It's just an illusion used to frighten victims, it'll pass. Tea?" Without waiting for an answer, she poured hot water into a single mug and tossed tea leaves into it.

"None for you?" The house, thankfully, had returned to normal. The only blood in sight was the colouring that flew to Red's face under Lucien's intense gaze.

"Can't eat or drink," Red said brightly. "Our Dread Father Sithis won't let me. How have you been?"

Lucien sipped his tea before answering. Years ago, he would have scolded the girl for inflicting sarcasm into Sithis' Unholy Name, but now didn't seem to be appropriate.

"I've been better," he responded carefully. "The Black Hand is rather...astonished at your lifestyle choice. As such, they try not to use my skills too often."

"My deathstyle choice," Red corrected, throwing her head back as she laughed. It wasn't forced, but it was too shrill and...maniacal to sound normal.

"How have you been, Cat?" Lucien, his tea finished, implied something else in his words, but the borderline-crazy woman didn't notice.

"Wonderfully, all things considered."  
This took the man somewhat by surprise. Red had spoken so soberly and calmly that he wasn't sure if her loneliness really had had much of an effect.

"No, what am I saying?" she corrected, almost as if to herself. "I'm horrible. Lonely, sad little Cat..." She looked back up again and, ignoring his look of uncertain bafflement, attempted a lopsided smile. "I apologize. I'm not used to...dealing with...guests." She jumped up suddenly, causing a tense assassin man to nearly draw his blade. "You're out of tea! I'll get you some more." She returned to the kettle not noticing Lucien's protests, adding to herself, "Little red kitty is getting old..."

"You're not old," Lucien scoffed when she returned with a fresh mug.

"Pardon?"

"You're barely an adult. You're not old."

Red positioned herself on the other side of the table. "I'm not twenty-eight anymore, Lucien."  
"Thirty-eight is nowhere near old." He tried not to think of how old that made him. He could assassinate even Mankar Cameron at any age. Still aware of his years, Lucien couldn't prevent himself from adding, "So that makes me, what? Fifty? You really shouldn't be complaining."

Red peered closer, and Lucien unconsciously shrank back under the scrutiny. "You sure didn't get any older in the Void," she finally said. "You're still in your late thirties, early forties."

She sounded the most sane she had been all night. Lucien grasped the opportunity for casual conversation before she lapsed into lonely madness again. "I still feel like a cradle robber."

It worked. "You're right," she agreed, a hesitantly teasing smile slowly twisting her mouth. "You are old. So what does that make me? A graverobb--" She broke off into laughter with only the slightest of hysterical edges. Lucien could only watch, stunned. He'd been pleased to have her joking rather normally, but he wondered if she had fallen to insanity again.

"Graverobber!" Red finally managed. "Oh, don't you see how perfect that is? By Sithis, I haven't laughed in years..."

She was fine, Lucien realized. What had the years done to her? She must have been in a depressed state after his death...a year in bloodstained solitude couldn't have helped.  
It pleased him to see her eyes crinkle up in something other than sadness.

When she had finally pulled herself together and coughed the last snickers away, Red was quick to add that she was "only teasing about you being old, Speaker." Then she slid her chair closer and placed her hand over his.

"We still have plenty of hours left, Lucien," she murmured coyly. "And I haven't gone completely raving yet..."

Red had thought that one day after one--no, eleven years couldn't possibly make up for the lost time.

Lucien was quick to show her her mistake.

Sithis continued to observe from the Void.  
He was not pleased.


	3. Chapter 3: Mouse

**A/N: Insert apologies and The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, not me here. Go wild with wording.**

"They are in love," said the Night Mother, lounging elegantly on her sarcophagus. "Let them be."

"Love!" Sithis scoffed. "Love, directed at any other than Myself, is blasphemous!" He didn't often bother to use a human voice or form, but with Lucien's soul still partly attached to the Void, He didn't want the man to hear. Right now He was a Dunmer male to match with the Matron.

"Besides, what would you know about human love?" He sneered at the woman. "Mate of an immortal being, you know nothing of human affairs. Unless that Arquen you speak with so often, she and you hold hands behind my back?"

"Don't be revolting," the Night Mother said coolly. Humans, unless they were dead or marked, were little more than her servants. " You would know if I had. I love only you."

"I'm glad to hear it," Sithis snapped, and he was. He liked to hear her praise him. He was very glad she belonged to him. "I need to do something about these Speakers," He added by way of farewell as He vanished into godlike form.

The Night Mother watched Him go, still musing over their conversation. Perhaps when Arquen joined the Void, she would ask Sithis about a temporary affair. After all, Arquen was much more interesting and powerful than pathetic Ungolim, and the Night Mother wasn't very particular.

"You have to leave now," Red Catius quietly said to the man beside her.

"Pardon?"

"Less than an hour. If you stay a second longer than allowed, you'll die."

Lucien rubbed the back of his head uncertainly. "You'll be all right?"

"No." Though she smiled, she couldn't prevent herself from speaking the truth.

Well, he certainly couldn't leave after hearing that.

"Red Cat."

The owner of that name looked up. Lucien was leaning against a warped dresser and had a spark of inspiration.

"Yesterday you told me you lured sacrifices to Sithis here before you killed them."

Red nodded.

"So that means," Lucien continued, "that other people can enter on days other than your free day without insant death. So the rule only applies to me?" He didn't show it, but he was getting excited. Perhaps he could send someone to prevent her from going insane. A healer perhaps, or maybe just a Brother or Sister to keep her company...

But Red was shaking her head before he'd finished. "Don't think yourself incredibly unique, Lucien. I have twenty four hours each year to meet socially with someone--anyone." Seeing Lucien imperceptibly slump, she grinned. "I never thought you of all people would try to bend Sithis' law. Especially after your reaction to your revival. I didn't even know for sure for whether you'd come back."

"Of course I'd come back," Lucien muttered absently. "So there's really nothing."

"No. Nothing." Red was starting to get annoyed rather than sad. "Stop pestering. I chose this for myself, and I have to live with it. I was willing to damn myself to let you live the long life you deserve and all you're doing is trying to make me sound like a hypocrite! Why can't just thank me and be happy?!"

Lucien, slightly flushed with the criticism, surprised her by almost roaring, "Because you're not happy, damn it! By Sithis, next time I come back, you'll barely be lucid! You're killing yourself with loneliness. It's not natural."

"Think I don't know?" Red responded a little more calmly than he had. "I would love to stay here and argue this with you, but if I'm killing myself with loneliness, you'll kill yourself trying to solve it. You're running out of time."

There was a silence unhelpful to the situation before Lucien finally headed towards the door.

"I'll...I'll see you next year," he said awkwardly, his hand on the handle. And then, so quietly that she had to strain to hear it: "I'm sorry."

"It's nothing," she said with a calmness she didn't feel. "I love you."

But he was already gone.

The smile remained plastered unnaturally on her face. He was right. She was killing herself. She knew she would definitely not survive the next time he walked out the door.

The Night Mother felt her Unholy husband's glee even before He was physically in the room. Sounds like He's solved the problem, she thought, emotions undecided between amusement and dismay. She'd always liked Lucien Lachance, and admired Red "Cat" Catius's guts in reviving him.

"What is their punishment?" she wondered when an eerie-looking Dunmer entered.

"Oh, I won't be doing anything," Sithis laughed sadistically, clapping His half-formed hands together like a child. The Night Mother felt a chill race, unbidden, up her spine. Sithis cackled in delight again before departing.

The Night Mother sank into a red chaise with a book and flipped through its pages. "I pity those children, I really do," she muttered, her ghostlike eyes skimming the pages.

Days turned to weeks turned to months...hours to minutes to seconds until they were gone.  
"It's a dance, really," Red mused to herself one evening as she washed her sword clean of fresh blood. "I wait, and then I kill. Over and over and over and over..."

'Over' was a word she enjoyed using. "It's over," she would say soothingly to her victims."Almost over," she would whisper as the sun set again. The rising and setting of the two moons and the sun blended together for her. The year was passing by so quickly, accelerated by her madness. Not too long before Lucien would be back again.

"And then," she would say, voice dripping with madness, "it'll all be over."

'Over', however, was coming a lot sooner than either Red or Lucien had expected...

The Brotherhood finally trusted Lucien enough to send him out on missions, and this would be his first since his revival that was out of town. And, of course, the trail led right by Applewatch farm.

Lucien froze, and the world seemed to freeze around him. The dilapidated old building stared mournfully back.

Inside, Red had invited a victim in for tea. The victim in question was a barely twenty-something Bosmer, who seemed bewildered that this house, rumoured as haunted, would be so welcoming and kind.

Red busied herself in the unused kitchen, cheerfully making small-talk while the little elf responded as best he could. He couldn't see the madness in her eyes.

"So," she chirped, setting a mug of something hot in front of him. "How are you?"

The tiny man goggled at her. "I'm, uh, I'm fine." There was a silence, her sipping her own drink while gazing at him in a sociable way, and he shuffling awkwardly in his chair.

"Why are you being so nice to me?" he finally blurted out. This situation was completely different from the horror stories he'd heard at the Mages Guild: a crazy, heartsick woman, luring travelers into her home and feasting on their blood. Perhaps he'd stumbled into the wrong household...?

Red Cat was genuinely surprised. "I'm lonely and would like company," she responded honestly. "You're not drinking, dear."

The elf only shook his head, confused by this response. "I....I'm not thirsty. Thank you." Red only smiled at him in a friendly way, and they continued to sit, the silence broken only by casual conversation.

After perhaps fifteen minutes of this strangely comfortable atmosphere, a harsh, raspy voice shook the small house. _Kill him. Kill, death, blood, bone, flesh, mine....uphold your bargain. Kill him._

The Associate felt his blood freeze in his veins, while his heart fell into his stomach with a sloshy sound. This was what he got for accepting a stranger's invitation....

Red, however, seemed to view the haunting voice as more of an unpleasant doorbell. "Well, that's a shame," she sighed. "I'd been hoping for someone to talk to for a little bit...I'm waiting for my lover, you see," she informed the petrified man conversationally. "It gets so horribly lonely...but I suppose it's only a few more months, right?" Red smiled in a brilliant way and lifted a horrible sword, encrusted with dried blood and positively humming with nasty enchantments. Fear racing through his veins, the Bosmer leapt back from the table and knocked the mugs to the floor, but he was too late. His blood mixed with the blood flowign steadily from the spilled vessels...

"This is going to be good," Sithis grinned excitedly, viewing the scene above like an Imperial Distrcit citizen might view a match at the Arena. "This is going to be so damned good." The Night Mother ignored Him and focused on carving a new mirror out of an Orcish skull. Human matters didn't concern her as much as they used to.

Lucien couldn't take it anymore. A scream sounded inside of the farm, and he rushed forwards into the fields without thought. He slammed the door open and found his Red Cat calmly wiping a sword on a young elf's corpse. She looked up at his arrival with misty eyes.

"I wanted company."

Lucien stepped forward and embraced her, his hands finding her curves like negative energy to positive. "I'm going to die with you," he murmured into her hair. "I was dying without you, let me finish the job here."

Red was in a daze; she couldn't tell if Lucien was here or whether she finally couldn't control hallucinations anymore. She could feel the enchantments working into the man's skin; knew that he had only a minute or so before either Sithis' voice came again or he just exploded into flames. "Am I going to die here, Lucien?" she whispered back.

"You're already dead." He brushed a lock of silvery hair from her face. "You need a proper burial."

The two ex-Speakers looked at each other, their eyes filled with love and insanity.

"This is wonderful," Sithis crowed. "I'm going to have so much fun tonight." "Yes, Master."

Without breaking their embrace, both lovers removed their Blades of Woe from their sheaths and placed it right above each others' heart.

"To think I wasted so many years trying to keep you alive," Red said with a ghostly grin. "And now I am going to die, and you will be dead yet again. If only I'd thought things through better and killed myself the moment I heard of your demise!"

"This way is better," Lucien said, kissing her quickly as they both drove their daggers into each other's hearts.

It was pure ecstasy.

And Applewatch was silent and lifeless again, the winds howling and the snow covering it so that it might never have existed.

Several hours later, Sithis returned to the Night Mother with a sadistic smile painting His features. She stopped what she was doing and raised an eyebrow at Him.

"Did you have fun?"  
"Loads,"He cackled. "They deserve such a warm welcome...I can't help punishing them as well. Ecstasy this is, pure ecstasy. And they're happy as well," He added as an afterthought.

"Well, let me know when you're done torturing them," The Night Mother said absently, returning to her artwork. "They need their bloody paradise after all they've been through."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Sithis turned, about to leave and go play with His new toys, but the Night Mother stopped him, remembering something.

"Oh, Dread Father? The Dark Sister Arquen, her time is near. Once she has joined the Void, would you mind if--"

"Yes, I would mind," Sithis snarled at her, rage wafting off of Him. "You belong to me, only me!"

"Sorry, dear," she said meekly, burrowing herself in her work again. Oh, well. "I love you."

"Love," Sithis mused to Himself as he departed, ready to torment Catius and Lachance some more for their blasphemy, "what a silly, pointless idea."

{End}

**A/N: And now for apologies of trying to personify Our Dread Father. I had ideas for other endings, but the happy ones died more than this. Whatever!**

**Anyway, rating smacks Maglir upside the head, and if you decide that he doesn't deserve one, you need to go to a chapel to fix that skooma-addled brain of yours, because there really isn't a logical explanation for any other reason. Thanks for reading!**


End file.
